Mighty Morphin Power Rangers/Notes
Series Trivia * Due to the unforeseen popularity of the series, Saban Entertainment, the company that produced Power Rangers, was faced with the possibility of exhausting all of its Zyuranger footage with no more to fall back upon in order to continue producing the show. The company contacted Toei (the company which produced/produces the Sentai series in Japan) as well as Rainbow Productions (the company that designed and produced the monster suits), requesting another half-season's worth of Zyuranger footage...specifically for Power Rangers. The two Japanese companies agreed, creating around 25 brand-new monsters and filming both human- and zord-sized battle footage for each, as well as incorporating elements from MMPR into the footage (a relationship between the Green and Pink Ranger and the Blue Ranger as the brains of the group being the most obvious examples). These monsters are collectively known in the Power Rangers fan community as "Zyu2," a term coined by Power Rangers fan Chris Funaro. Around this time, Saban was also negotiating a deal with Toei to acquire footage from Gosei Sentai Dairanger, the sentai series which followed Zyuranger. Saban used more than half of the Zyu2 costumes in the remainder of Season One of Power Rangers. When they decided to replace the Dinozords with the mecha from Dairanger in Season Two (termed Thunderzords in Power Rangers), the Zord footage of the remaining Zyu2 monsters became obsolete. To compensate for this, Saban attempted to splice the Zyu2 and Dairanger footage to ensure that the Zyu2 monsters were not seen fighting with the old Megazord that was not supposed to be there. In other words, it would show only the monster attacking followed by a shot of just the Thunderzords taking the damage. This did not always work, for occasionally the monster could actually be seen making physical contact with the old Megazord. * Lord Zedd is the first American-made villain that is only part of Power Rangers and not the Sentai Series. The suits of several monsters were modified in some fashion in order to create new monsters for American footage. Such monsters were. ** Pudgy Pig was disassembled, and parts were used for Turkey Jerk in Season Two's "Storybook Rangers." ** Mr. Ticklesneezer was repainted and clad in a Santa Claus-like suit, becoming Grumble the Elf in Season Two's "Storybook Rangers." ** Snizard was repainted and modified with a cobra hood to become the Cobra Monster in Lightspeed Rescue's "The Cobra Strikes." ** Chunky Chicken was also disassembled for use in Turkey Jerk. ** Grumble Bee was repainted and given buck teeth to become Waspicable in ''In Space'''s "A Wasp with a Heart." Waspicable also appeared in ''Lost Galaxy'''s "Heir to the Throne." ** Primator was repainted and given extra fur, and became the Snow Monster in Season Two's "Storybook Rangers." ** Salaguana was disassembled into the reptillian parts of Triter from ''Zeo'''s "King for a Day." ** Silver Horns was repainted and a tongue was added, becoming Repellator in Season 3's "A Friend in Need." ** Merrick the Barbaric's head was removed, and his body was used for Incisorator in the Season Three episode "Changing of the Zords, Part II." Ironically, Incisorator's episode aired before Merrick's. * The expression "Morphinomenal!" was coined by Kimberly Ann Hart. Similarly, "It's Morphin Time!" was first spoken by Zordon in the episode "High Five." The expression "Back To Action" was coined by Jason Lee Scott * The Ninja and Shogun Ultrazords are the only Zord formations in Power Rangers history that are made from American footage. No suits or props were used in making them; the Bandai toys of each Zord were used to bring them to life on the show. The American versions of the toys were used for this, which presented some problems as the American versions are often noticeably different than the Japanese versions (and thus, the actual Zords on the show). For example, the left arm of the Japanese Shogun Megazord toy (and the real Shogun Megazord) is white. For some reason, the left arm of the Shogun Megazord toy was repainted pink for the American version. Thus, the arm would suddenly switch colors whenever the Shogun Ultrazord was formed. * Being the original series, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers also the most favorite of all Power Rangers fans, winning a viewer contest conducted by ABC Family in 2004, receiving the most votes. * The original series has the distinction of being the longest-running incarnation lasting for three years (1993-1996), with the longest running single main continuity, lasting til Power Rangers Zeo, Power Rangers Turbo, and Power Rangers In Space. * Aaron Waters composed and wrote the original Power Rangers theme song, a full length, 4 minute long track used for promotion. It's title is "Go Go Power Rangers". The theme 'go' would appear in almost all subsequent Power Ranger songs. * As is commonly known now, despite the Yellow Ranger being a female within Power Rangers, in "Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger" the Yellow (or Tiger) Ranger , named Boi/Boy, was male. Due to this there is an obvious change in the physique of the Yellow team member when the show cuts to Sentai footage. (This is most notable within Season 1). The gender issue of the footage was repeated in Lost Galaxy, Lightspeed Rescue, Time Force, and Wild Force, whose shows had female Yellow Rangers but their Sentai counterparts were male. The issue was rectified as the American footage fitted the Yellow ranger costume with breasts, but the Sentai footage had the flat chest. * The order in which the Ninja Zords and Shogun Zords were aquired was reversed in Power Rangers. In the original source of those two Zord sets, "Ninja Sentai Kakuranger", the 'Shogun Zords' were gained before the 'Ninja Zords'. In the same way, since there were only five Rangers in Kakuranger, the Falcon Zord was a separate entity not belonging to anyone of them. Ninjaman/Ninjor didn't need a 'Zord' since he could grow Zord-size. * In the original Gosei Sentai Dairanger (which MMPR season 2 is based on) Tommy's white ranger counterpart Kou of the Howling New Star is actually a child, which is why Tommy appears shorter in his first fight as the White Ranger. * Mondo the Magician, a metal-faced humanoid the Rangers defeated rather quickly in Season 2's "Storybook Rangers: Part 2," was actually the main villain from Dairanger * The assignment of the Black and Yellow Rangers to an African-American and an Asian (Zack Taylor and Trini Kwan, respectively) was a sticking point with fans. At a panel at Power Morphicon in 2007, one of the original creators stated that they honestly did not realize what they had done in casting until roughly ten episodes in. Interestingly, their replacements reverse this: Asian-American Adam Park becomes the Black Ranger, while African-American Aisha Campbell became the Yellow Ranger. Season One * "Bones", was the name of the first monster to ever battle the Power Rangers in the inception of the series. Although in the lost episode (the original Pilot), they battled "King Sphinx", and Sphinx appeared again in the episode titled, "A Pressing Engagement" (the switch was due to the fact that Dora Sphinx was the first monster that the Zyurangers had to use their Daizyujin to beat, and since the pilot had to show the Megazord, which was an integral part of the show, they decided to use footage from that fight). * Billy Cranston (David Yost) wears blue plaid boxer shorts. In the episode "Power Ranger Punks," Billy and Kimberly (Amy Jo Johnson) become punks after drinking Rita's potion. Viewers can see the top of Billy's boxer shorts in his punk outfit, which is a blue plaid pattern. However, after the spell is removed by Alpha and Zordon, Billy immediately notices this and hides the top of his boxer shorts from sight. * Six video games based on this show were produced, one for Sega Genesis, one for Sega CD, one for Sega Game Gear, two for Super Nintendo Entertainment System (one being called Power Rangers the Fighting Edition) and one for Game Boy. * Ron Wasserman composed and wrote the original Power Rangers theme song, a full length, 4 minute long track used for promotion. It's title is "Go Go Power Rangers". The TV version happens to be the shortest (and most simple) theme for a Ranger series, consisting of only 2 sentences that keeps getting repeated: "Go Go Power Rangers" and "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers". *As is commonly known now, despite the Yellow Ranger being a female within Power Rangers, in Zyuranger the Yellow (or Tiger) Ranger, named Boi/Boy, was male. Due to this there is a more noticeable change in the physique of the Yellow team member than the other rangers, when the show cuts to Sentai footage. *Amy Jo Johnson (Kimberly) and David Yost (Billy) didn't do martial arts before the show, though both Johnson and Yost were gymnasts. So they took self defense classes and incorporated their talents into the choreography for the fight scenes. Austin St. John (Jason), Thuy Trang (Trini) and Jason David Frank (Tommy) were all martial artists long before the show. Walter Jones (Zack) also had some training beforehand. *The S1 episodes that used Zyuranger footage would commonly have the Rangers protecting a child due to the fact that Bandora's plots centered around attacking children. the American plots removed the child subplot from most of the episodes but some footage stayed where a Ranger would defend a child of the day from the Dora monster. *This season, Mighty Morphin 2, and Power Rangers Zeo were the only three seasons to have episode counts that exceeded their Sentai counterparts. This season has ten more episodes than'' Zyuranger. Season Two *This is the only season (in the Zordon Era or otherwise) where a part of the Ranger's Arsenal was directly upgraded from a previous season's tools, with the 5 original Dino Zords from season 1 being used as foundations for the Thunder Zords of this season (the Ninja powers of season 3, while still being "Mighty Morphin" powers, were technically replacements for the original powers, not upgrades. *Before deciding to use the ''Dairanger footage, sketches were created for original Thunderzords, essentially updated Dinozords, though an updated Tigerzord was used as part of this as well. *The Zyuranger costumes are still used rather than replacing them with the Dairanger suits, though Tommy's new White Ranger costume is from the sixth Ranger of Dairanger. *Lord Zedd is the very first Power Rangers villain to be American made instead of using the costume of Dairanger's main antagonist. *Most footage for this season was mostly American rather than Japanese. *Episode 40: Rangers Back in Time, Part II hits the 100th Episode Mark. *This is the first season where a Red Ranger step downs as a leader. *This season, Mighty Morphin 1 and Power Rangers Zeo are the only three Power Ranger seasons where the episode counts exceed the episode counts of their Sentai counterparts. This season's episode count exceeds Dairanger's episode count by 2 episodes. *This is the first season where the rangers' zords/megazords have a cockpit that differs from the Sentai version, it followed by season 3 and Samurai. Season Three *Several elements of this season openly contradict Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie, rendering it out-of continuity- such as Ninjetti, Ninja FalconMegazord, and even the way the rangers received their powers. *In Kakuranger, Master Vile (or at least his counterpart) is the main antagonist but in the MMPR, Vile is the father of Rita and Rito. *This season introduced Bob Papenbrook as a new voice actor to the PR voice cast to voice Rita's Skeleton-themed brother Rito Revolto. Papenbrook later voiced Deviot in PRLG. *Masked Rider appeared in the season's three-part special "A Friend in Need", which later allowed him to star in his own show until his cancellation in 1996 (during Power Rangers: Zeo's run, the end of VR Troopers' run and the debut of Big Bad Beetleborgs). *By the time of this season, Power Rangers' popularity began to wane but toy sales stayed the same. *This was the first season to feature bloopers in the ending credits. *This is the second season to feature American-shot scenes in a zord battle, the first was MMPR Season 2. *This is the first season feature and only season to use an American exclusive zord combination (aka Titanus with the Ninja MegaFalconZord & Shogun MegaFalconZord to form the Ninja Ultrazord & Shogun Ultrazord respectively. *This is the second time where the rangers' zords/megazords have a cockpit that differs from the Sentai version.